aand that’s going to be it for surveys for a while! i’m going thru some Exciting and Important times so i can’t guarantee i’ll be keeping an eye on this blog in the following weeks. submissions will be very welcome still though. i guess i could say this blog is going to turn submission based :O just try to be careful and not send a submission that has already been sent (use the search on the blog!)
A woman on live Russian national television carried out a poster against the war and propaganda, here’s the clip:
She chanted “stop the war, no to the war”, and the poster reads: “stop the war, don’t believe the propaganda, they’re lying to you here”
Her name is Marina Ovsyannikova, an editor at Channel One. The channel itself said she’s a stranger. She is already at the police station. Here’s her pre-recorded message (in Russian)
“I am ashamed for this, for letting others tell lies from TV screens, for letting them zombify Russian people. We kept silent in 2014 when all this began. We didn’t go out and protest when Navalny got poisoned by the Kremlin. We simply watched this anti-human regime without saying a word. And now the whole world turned their back on us, and ten generations of our descendants won’t be able to wash away the shame of this fratricidal war. We are Russian people, thinking, smart, we are the only ones who can stop this madness. Go out and protest, don’t be afraid. They can’t arrest all of us.”
There’s an update on the case: after several lawers were unable to locate her during the night (the police withheld the information on where she was), Marina Ovsayannikova has been found in a Moscow court. She has been fined for 30000 rubles (~280 USD as of now) for advocating for unauthorized demonstrations, and she is still being investigated further
Someone in my offline life asked why I bother writing Star Wars fanfic, listing off Disney’s various and assorted sins, all of which of course I agree are awful! BUT. I think Star Wars as a concept doesn’t actually belong to the company that bought the legal right to wring as much capital out of the IP as possible. Star Wars is actually much larger than that.
Star Wars is a massive cultural project, almost half a century old, comprising all forms media, all forms of both official and folk art. It’s a densely woven tapestry of stories, the fruits of the labor and inspiration of thousands and thousands of people. It’s honestly the mythology of many of our childhoods, and it belong to us in a way that capitalism can’t touch.
It’s truly a global phenomenon too! Writing stories and sharing my theories about Star Wars has brought me into being a member a vast community of people, like I’ve had people ask to translate my stories into Russian, Italian, Chinese. I’ve had comments in my story written in so many languages. I have made friends across the globe, all from sitting at my isolated farm in rural USA.
That’s the reason that I write Star Wars, beyond enjoying the Force, the Jedi, the infinitely expandable galaxy, etc. like there’s room for everybody to tell stories. It’s a beautiful, special thing that I wouldn’t trade for anything. I personally LIKE joining in and adding my voice to an ongoing conversation among people who are excited about the heroes and stories that defined my childhood.
The entire idea of mythology only being available for a corporation, and not for the fans, is absurd to me. If we were in ancient Greece, and you said that you and your friends like to sit around and tell each other stories about Homeric characters, nobody would find it strange! Homer and the Homeric heroes were the pervasive stories that everybody vaguely knew and everyone had the context to easily enjoy a retelling.
I’m a prequels kid, and for me and many people in my generation, Anakin Skywalker, Padmé Amidala, and Obi-Wan Kenobi, and the fall of the galactic republic are formative stories seen at the ages when stories really matter. The generation before might have had Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Han Solo—these figures are so archteypal, they belong to all of our collective imagination. Disney has nothing to do with that.
